Today, Microsoft Corp announced that its highly popular email service, Outlook.com, is ready for prime time. Since the release of Outlook.com last summer as a preview, millions of people have already actively started using it, making it the world's fastest growing email service, going from 0 to 60 million in just six months.

A vision for modern email
Email is a critical part of our everyday lives; email plays a crucial role in how we get things done. Outlook.com was designed as an email service focused on removing barriers and simply getting people going. Outlook.com gets people going in four key areas:

● Delivering a beautiful, fresh and intuitive experience on modern browsers and devices
● Keeping people connected with their friends and co-workers across the networks they really use
● Providing a smart and powerful inbox to handle today's email needs including SkyDrive for sharing virtually anything in a single email
● Putting people back in control by prioritizing their privacy

More than 60 million help make the Outlook.com vision come to life
Through the preview, Microsoft has heard a great deal about customers' favorite features, the way they use the product, and how well Outlook.com is delivering on the company's vision for modern email. For example, Outlook.com lets customers connect to popular social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Today, millions of people are using those features to keep up to date with friends' contact info updates, photos and Tweets. Outlook.com is also designed to make it easy to send hundreds of photos and videos in a single message – all powered by SkyDrive. After only six months, nearly half of all people using Outlook.com have already used SkyDrive to share more than half a billion photos and Office documents.

A great upgrade for Hotmail customers
Starting today, Microsoft will begin to upgrade every Hotmail user to Outlook.com. The upgrade is seamless and instant for Hotmail customers; everything from their @hotmail.com email address, password, contacts, etc. will stay the same. Now Hotmail customers will get all the benefits from the redesigned Outlook.com experience: a fresh and intuitive user interface, lots of new features, and better performance.

Get started today
Those who would like to get the new benefits of the Outlook.com experience can check it out today at Outlook.com.

I see they still haven't updated the Calendar to go with the rest of the site. They really need to hurry up on that, given that the Skydrive and Outlook site match perfectly. Then when you go look at your calendar you're brought to the old "Hotmail" style of calendar.

Most every application you have is tied to your email. Steam, Origin, iTunes, etc. If someone gets a key logger on your PC they can get to EVERYTHING and change passwords. With Step-Two verification even if they have ALL your passwords including your gmail account they cannot get in. It kinda works like the Battle.net USB dongle. Google calls your house or cell phone and gives you a unique code. They also give you 12 unique codes right to begin with to put away incase you lose your phone or something. So even if a hacker gets you password they cannot log into your email. They would need access to your home phone or cell. Follow?

Most every application you have is tied to your email. Steam, Origin, iTunes, etc. If someone gets a key logger on your PC they can get to EVERYTHING and change passwords. With Step-Two verification even if they have ALL your passwords including your gmail account they cannot get in. It kinda works like the Battle.net USB dongle. Google calls your house or cell phone and gives you a unique code. They also give you 12 unique codes right to begin with to put away incase you lose your phone or something. So even if a hacker gets you password they cannot log into your email. They would need access to your home phone or cell. Follow?

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Ah yes. Well I never considered Hotmail/Outlook.com a serious email address anyway, so I will never put anything important there.

Ah yes. Well I never considered Hotmail/Outlook.com a serious email address anyway, so I will never put anything important there.

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IMHO Gmail is the only secure option right now unless you setup your own private email server. Using anything else other than Gmail right now is just dumb....IMO. That's why I was asking if Outlook had something like it. I would like to drop Gmail and get an Outlook account to stay within the MS ecosystem.

Outlook e-mail does not have Multi-factor authentication in the strictest sense - at least when compared to GMail. However if you try to change anything "personal" about your Microsoft/Live account, then it will ask for a temp code it texts to your phone.

So, yes and no in regards to your question. No, it doesn't require two-factor authentication to log-in, but if you go and try your change some "critical" account settings, it will ask you for a second step of verification. However, in regards to whether the e-mail service specifically offers two-step authentication for login; the answer would be no.